National Coral Reef Monitoring Program: Benthic Complexity and Urchin Abundance at Climate Stations of American Samoa from 2015-02-15 to 2015-03-26 (NCEI Accession 0159143)

The benthic complexity and urchin abundance monitoring effort provides baselines for tracking these variables at National Coral Reef Monitoring Program (NCRMP) climate stations. Climate stations are 3-4 sites per island that were selected in a stratified random fashion to be roughly equally spaced around the island, along the 15 m contour, on hard bottom, and at least 1 km away from a river mouth or embayment. Once selected we assess multiple features of the coral reef environment including in-situ temperature (STR), seawater carbonate, net carbonate accretion (CAU), bioerosion (BMU), and cryptobiota diversity (ARMS).
Structural complexity is known to be an important component in coral reef ecosystems. Ecosystem relationships that correlate with structural complexity include reef fish density and biomass, live and branching coral cover, urchin abundance and algal cover (Graham and Nash 2013). In many cases, the benthic complexity is an important indicator of benthic and fish communities.
The data were collected around American Samoa as part of the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), Coral Reef Ecosystem Program (CREP) led mission in 2015.

底栖复杂性与海胆丰度监测工作，为国家珊瑚礁监测计划（National Coral Reef Monitoring Program, NCRMP）气候站点的相关变量动态追踪提供基线数据。气候站点为每个岛屿设置3至4个监测点位，采用分层随机抽样方式选取，需满足以下布设要求：环绕岛屿大致等距分布、沿15米等深线布设、位于硬质底质区域，且距离河口或海湾至少1公里。点位选定后，我们会对珊瑚礁生态环境的多项特征开展评估，包括原位温度（in-situ temperature, STR）、海水碳酸盐体系状况、碳酸盐净沉积量（net carbonate accretion, CAU）、生物侵蚀量（bioerosion, BMU）以及隐生生物多样性（cryptobiota diversity, ARMS）。
结构复杂性是珊瑚礁生态系统的重要组成部分。与结构复杂性相关的生态系统关联包括礁鱼密度与生物量、活珊瑚及分枝珊瑚盖度、海胆丰度与藻类盖度（Graham与Nash，2013）。多数情况下，底栖复杂性是底栖生物与鱼类群落的重要指示因子。
本次数据采集工作覆盖美属萨摩亚周边海域，属于2015年由美国国家海洋和大气管理局（National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA）太平洋岛屿渔业科学中心（Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, PIFSC）珊瑚礁生态系统项目（Coral Reef Ecosystem Program, CREP）牵头实施的科考任务的组成部分。